Intel kills WiGig

In what is becoming a long list of what Intel is giving up on is its WiGig 60GHz 802.11ad controllers and antennas.

Chipzilla has sent end-of-life notifications for the high-speed wireless parts, and it will stop making and selling them in just a few months.

802.11ad boasts higher performance—up to 4.8 gigabits per second—than 802.11ac, but its use of the 60GHz frequency, rather than the 5GHz or 2.4GHz of mainstream Wi-Fi, means that it's limited to a very short range. It also requires line of sight between the device and the base station. Penetration through walls is essentially non-existent, so using 802.11ad as a Wi-Fi alternative would require a base station in every room.

This limits 802.11ad's use as a networking interface, but it does have an alternative use as a cable replacement. A handful of 802.11ad docking stations have come to market, enabling a laptop to connect to a monitor and other peripherals without using wires.

Chipzilla is not abandoning the 60GHz space. There is some interest in using it for VR headsets, and in May the company announced a partnership with HTC to produce an 802.11ad-enabled Vive headset.

This would offer a useful halfway house between fully untethered systems and wired systems. Intel isn't the only company that's investigating this use of 60GHz communications. A 60GHz wireless adaptor for the HTC Vive is available from TPCast, and the device adds a lot of freedom at the expense of weight and price.